The attack, which also damaged nearby shops and civilian vehicles, had targeted a security post for checking and registering vehicles passing through the area.

Nangarhar Public Health Directorate spokesperson Inamullah Myakhil said the wounded, including two members of Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, were moved to the hospital.

Police spokesperson Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal confirmed that the incident was a suicide attack and added a probe was on. No insurgent group claimed the attack.

Nangarhar is a hotbed of insurgency with the presence of many terror groups, including the Taliban and the Islamic State.

On July 1, 19 people -- mostly from the minority Hindu and Sikh communities -- were killed and 21 were wounded in another suicide attack in Jalalabad, which coincided with a visit by President Ashraf Ghani.

The Afghan government has increasingly lost ground to the Taliban since the end of the NATO combat mission in 2015, and now controls just 56 per cent of the country, according to the US government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

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About us

South Asia Monitor (SAM) - a property of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS - www.spsindia.in), an independent think-tank based in New Delhi - is an independent web journal and online resource dealing with strategic, political, security, cultural and economic issues about, pertaining to and of consequence to South Asia and the Indo-Pacific region. .Developed for South Asia watchers across the globe or those looking for reliable resource and documentation on this region, SAM features exclusive spotlights, insightful analyses, interviews and reviews contributed by strategic experts, diplomats, journalists, analysts, researchers and students.